On Wednesday, March 10, 2009, a busload of us from Rochester joined disability rights activists from around the state to protest Governor Paterson’s proposed budget cuts that would cap personal care services at twelve hours per day. Read about what happened here.
Archive for the ‘ADAPT’ Category
No Matter What You Call It…It’s Still a Cap!
Friday, March 12th, 2010Take Five! ADAPT Steps It Up to Ask Congress to End the Institutional Bias
Monday, March 8th, 2010Take Five!
ADAPT Steps It Up to Ask Congress to End the Institutional Bias
As we Defend Our Freedom at the state level and call on the
administration to enforce our rights established by the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision, we can’t let Congress off the hook. After all, Congress has the power to end the institutional bias by passing the Community Choice Act (S683/HR1670). So how are we going to step it up?
We’re going to take on FIVE of them at a time, together!
Right now, we have 121 co-sponsors in the House (at least until Eric
Massa’s resignation takes effect) and 25 co-sponsors in the Senate.
About one-quarter of each house has signed on as a co-sponsor of the
CCA!
The number of people signing on slowed down a bit while we focused on
health care reform legislation, so we are changing our approach.
Instead of asking everyone to contact their local Representatives or
Senators, ADAPT’s Community Choice Workgroup is identifying FIVE
specific members of Congress that we will ask everyone across the
country to work on. We will do electronic action alerts that allow us
to fax and email the DC office, encourage local people to call the
office, and coordinate visits in the DC offices.
It’s really important that we all reach out to local folks as well. Our elected officials do pay closer attention to the people who elect them. After doing an alert, everyone should try to identify people and groups we know are in the Representative’s district (or at least close).
These may be family, friends, or that friend from high school long ago that you now have a reason to call or email.
When we release new targets, we will offer talking points that can be used.
It can be really frustrating if you think you’re the only one making
calls and contacts. You don’t know what other people have been told.
When a staff person says, no one else has asked about this, you don’t
know what to say. ADAPT, as part of the Coalition for Community
Integration, has set up a website, http://www.c4ci.org ,
where we can post information about our legislative advocacy and visits. This will allow everyone to share specific information about their work.
Also members of the Coalition are regularly in Washington, DC and set up appointments in the DC offices. The DC advocates can take the
information you have shared online to those appointments and report back to you online about what they heard.
Take Five’s First Round: IT’S TIME TO FREE OUR SISTERS!
In recognition that we are starting this effort on International Women’s Day, we have identified five Congresswomen who we want to sign on as co-sponsors of the Community Choice Act (S683/HR1670). All have been previous co-sponsors of the legislation, but haven’t signed on yet.
Judy Biggert, IL-13: Her district includes the cities of Naperville,
Downers Grove, and Bolingbrook.
Nita Lowey, NY-18: Her district is in southeastern corner of New York
State, just north of the Bronx, and includes parts of Westchester and
Rockland Counties.
Carolyn McCarthy, NY-4: Her district is located in central Long Island
in west-central Nassau County and includes Mineola, the Five Towns, East Rockaway, Rockville Centre, Oceanside, Garden City, Hempstead,
Uniondale, East Meadow, Roosevelt, Franklin Square, Valley Stream, and
Elmont.
Gwen Moore, WI-4: The Congresswoman is the first woman to represent the district which is based in Milwaukee and also includes South Milwaukee, Cudahy and St. Francis, and part of West Allis.
Loretta Sanchez, CA-47: California’s 47th congressional district covers the cities of Garden Grove and Santa Ana and parts of Fullerton and Anaheim, in Orange County. The 47th congressional district is one of the few districts in California that does not have an overwhelming majority of voters favoring one party.
TAKE ACTION!
START by doing this electronic Action Alert: http://www.cdrnys.org/ccawomen
If the link does not work, please cut and paste it into your browser.
After you do the alert, forward it out to other folks, particularly
people and organizations from the districts these Congresswomen
represent. Consider sending it out to women’s groups! FREE OUR
SISTERS!
Some Talking Points: The Institutional Bias is a women’s issue!
According to the most recent data on the CMS website, 68.4% of nursing
facility residents are women.
Women typically live longer than men and, if married, tend to outlive
their husbands. As they grow older, women are more likely than men to
live alone, without a spouse or other family member to provide
assistance. In fact, by the time a woman reaches the age of 75, the
chances that she is living with a spouse have dropped below one in
three.
Women are more likely to need assistance than men of the same age.
Among people age 75 or older, women are 60 percent more likely than men to need help with one or more activities of daily living, such as
eating, bathing, dressing, or getting around inside the home. One in
nine women age 75 or older, and one in five age 85 or older, needs
assistance with daily activities.
Women are 60 percent more likely than men to go into a nursing facility at some point in their lives.
According to a 2003 National Alliance for Caregiving/AARP survey, six
out of ten informal caregivers were women. Among caregivers providing
high levels of care, the proportion of women was even greater.
The 2003 survey reported that the “typical” caregiver is a 46-year-old
woman, who has some college education, works, and spends more than 20
hours per week providing care to her mother.
More than 60 percent of female caregivers who were employed had to make sacrifices at work to accommodate caregiving, including going in late or leaving early, working fewer hours, turning down a promotion, losing some benefits, taking a leave of absence, or choosing early retirement or giving up working entirely.
Tell Representative Steny Hoyer it’s time to end the institutional bias!
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010Tell Representative Steny Hoyer it’s time to end the institutional bias!
Urge Him to Co-sponsor the Community Choice Act!
Disability rights advocates must send a message to Representative Steny Hoyer. He helped to lead the passage of the ADA. Previously, he co-sponsored MiCASSA. But he is not yet a co-sponsor of the Community Choice Act (CCA). This must change, and NOW is the critical time!
Seniors and people with disabilities overwhelmingly prefer to live in the
community with supports rather than being forced into a nursing facility or
other institution. CCA gives people real choice in long term services and
supports. This legislation ends the institutional bias in Medicaid by giving
individuals who are eligible for a nursing facility or other institutional
“care” equal access to community-based services and supports, like attendant services.
Contact Representative Steny Hoyer to ask that he end the institutional bias and become a co-sponsor of the Community Choice Act. Click on
http://www.tinyurl.com/hoyer-alert This will take you to a letter that you
may personalize. Enter your contact information, then, click once on the Send button.
It’s that easy! Afterwards, please send this Alert to your friends so
that they can urge Representative Hoyer to co-sponsor the Community Chouce Act!
If the link does not work, please cut and paste it into your browser.
Remembering Wade Blank
Monday, February 15th, 2010
Wade Blank 1940-1993
It has been 17 years to the day since we lost Wade, and I still miss him! I know that he is with the Ancestors watching over us because sometimes, I feel his presence guiding us in ADAPT. I loved him dearly; he was like a father to me.
I wrote an article about Wade for Associated Content. Here it is:
DEFENDING OUR FREEDOM: ADAPT’s Call to Action for Home and Community in America
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010We The People hold our government accountable for enforcing our rights.
As the 20th Anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities
Act draws near, the disability community is not busy celebrating because
we are literally in a fight for our lives and our most basic freedoms.
Eleven years ago, in the Olmstead decision, the Supreme Court said that
Americans with disabilities have the right to live in the most integrated
setting. Yet today, states are responding to budget shortfalls by
drastically cutting home and community-based services. These Draconian
cuts are forcing seniors and people with disabilities into nursing
facilities and other institutional settings because they don’t have the
services they need in the community to remain independent.
As states cut vital services, the federal government, which is charged
with protecting our civil rights and enforcing the law, is simply standing
by – silent – while Americans with disabilities have their most basic
freedoms taken away by the states.
The disability community cannot sit by as our freedom is negotiated away
in back room budget deals. We must take action!
DEFENDING OUR FREEDOM is a three-prong national campaign initiated by ADAPT to organize the disability community to:
* Demand that the Obama administration fulfill its duty to
aggressively protect the civil rights of disabled Americans and enforce
the Americans with Disabilities Act/Olmstead decision;
* File complaints with the Health and Human Services Office for
Civil Rights and the U.S. Department of Justice that document the
violation of rights of individuals who have been forced into
institutional settings, denied community services, or have had their
community services reduced as well as complaints that document the state
policies and budget cuts that violate our rights; and
* Document the disability community’s efforts to fight back against
state cuts so that we can learn from each other’s efforts, rally others
to join our fight, and hold public officials accountable when they do
not support our freedom.
I. DEFENDING OUR FREEDOM: Demanding action by the Obama administration
The federal government is responsible for enforcing federal law and
assuring that states comply with the Americans with Disabilities
Act/Olmstead decision. ADAPT is demanding that the federal government
affirmatively and aggressively enforce the Olmstead decision. To do this,
the Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights and the U.S.
Department of Justice, must:
1. Accept, investigate and resolve individual and systemic complaints
which document state policies and budget cuts that threaten the freedom
of Americans with disabilities;
2. Develop specific benchmarks/criteria for assessing state
compliance, and holding them accountable. with the Olmstead decision,
assess the states and publicly release this assessment on an annual
basis;
3. Conduct regular, on-going compliance reviews of states for
compliance with the Olmstead decision;
4. Develop “most integrated setting” criteria for determining when
DOJ will step in and affirmatively enforce the Olmstead decision
whether or not there has been a complaint filed ;
5. With CMS, review state submissions for modifying their Medicaid
State Plan and HCBS waiver services for the impact that these changes
will have on the state’s ability to comply with the Olmstead decision
so that those changes which limit the freedom of Americans with
disabilities are not approved by CMS;
6. With CMS, modify Section Q of the Minimum Data Set so that people
who indicate they want to return to community living are actively
assisted to do so;
7. Publicly report on the progress that has been made so that these
results can be discussed in a potential meeting between Georgina
Verdugo, the HHS/OCR Director, and ADAPT representatives.
ACTION TO TAKE: ADAPT is urging organizations across the country to sign on in support of these demands. If your organization would like to
support this campaign, email DOF.signon@gmail.com
II. DEFENDING OUR FREEDOM: Filing complaints to protect our freedom
The Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights and Department of
Justice are charged with protecting the civil rights of Americans with
disabilities who want to live in the most integrated setting. Although
they are able to affirmatively enforce the law without specific
complaints, these agencies typically take action only when complaints are
filed. We need to file complaints that document the violation of rights
of individuals who have been forced into institutional settings, denied
community services, or have had their community services reduced. We must also file complaints that document the state policies and budget cuts that steal the freedom to we are entitled under the Olmstead decision.
ACTION TO TAKE: ADAPT has prepared a form you can download and fax to us toll free at 1-888-324-0787. We will forward your complaint to the Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights, the appropriate HHS/OCR
Regional office, and the Department of Justice. If you choose to file
your complaint yourself, please notify us at DOF.complaint@gmail.com that
you have filed a complaint and, if possible, send ADAPT a copy.
III. DEFENDING OUR FREEDOM: Fighting back and sharing our stories
Even though there are different battles in individual states, we are
fighting the same fight. To strengthen these efforts across the country,
our campaign will collect personal and state stories about the effects of
budget cuts and the efforts to fight back against them. ADAPT has created
a website (www.defendingourfreedom2010.blogspot.com where we can post information and pictures of your advocacy. This will create a public
record of the disability community’s efforts to stop cuts and hopefully
inspire others across the country to speak up and speak out, too. State
advocates can also submit individual calls to action so that we can
support each other’s efforts.
ACTION TO TAKE: Send submissions to defendingourfreedom@gmail.com . And
remember to keep up on what groups are doing by reading the blog:
www.defendingourfreedom2010.blogspot.com.
RA’s Note: Sorry for the bad formatting. Wordpress is acting up.
Happy Martin Luther King Day!
Monday, January 18th, 2010Happy Martin Luther King Day to all of my Gentle Readers! Today is the federal holiday commemorating the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ( January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968).
I plan to watch all of the MLK specials and reflect on the life of Dr. King. I’m also going to respond to this Action Alert:
Make Freedom a Reality for ALL Americans Tell the Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights that they need to enforce the Olmstead Decision! Click here for the link.
Let your voice be heard in Albany!
Sunday, November 8th, 2009Bright and VERY early Monday morning, the Rochester crew will be saddling up to go to Albany, our state Capital, to protest the Governor’s, and state Republicans’ proposed budget cuts. I’ll try hard to blog live from the action. Anyway, here is the Alert that I sent out:
Let Your Voice be heard in Albany!
As you have probably heard, the Governor proposed DRASTIC cuts to home care, Medicaid, and Independent Living Centers that include a 10% cut from November through March and an on-going cut of three to four percent. Further, state Republicans have proposed to completely eliminate all Medicaid services that are labeled “optional” by the federal government, including coverage for prescriptions, as well as 18 other essential health care services. Although times are difficult, these cuts will make matters worse for many folks. These proposed cuts directly affect almost every New Yorker with a disability!
TAKE ACTION!!!! Let your voice be heard in Albany!
The Center for Disability Rights has planned a trip to make sure our voice is heard by the Albany bureaucrats who hold people’s lives in their hands.
November 9, 2009 – Albany
We are headed to Albany for a statewide action on the cuts.
We will meet at the Center for Disability Rights, located at 497 State Street by 5:30 AM, and we will arrive back at the office about 11 PM.
We don’t know what could happen, so people should be sure to bring meds and toileting supplies for two days in case we have unexpected problems or delays.
We really don’t expect to need them, but don’t want people to have serious medical issues, so bring them, just in case.
We have proposed approaches that will save money and support people living independently, but the Paterson administration has not acted on our proposals. Instead, they are proposing cuts to services across-the-board, so we have the right to be angry and push back.
Please join us and help others join us in this effort!
Testimony before the State Senate Finance Committee
Sunday, November 8th, 2009Monday, November 2, 2009, I was one of over 50 people from Rochester ADAPT/Center for Disability Rights who went to Buffalo, NY, for the hearing before the State Senate Finance Committee about Governor Paterson’s Deficit Reduction Plan (DRP). Chris, Bruce, and I presented testimony before this body. Here is my testimony. I will say here that many folks felt that it was very powerful!
Dear Senator Kruger and members of the Senate Finance Committee:
My name is Anita Cameron, and I am a Systems Advocate with the Center for Disability Rights, a Rochester-based Center for Independent Living with offices in Geneva, Corning, and Albany. I would like to thank you for allowing me to speak today regarding Governor Paterson’s Deficit Reduction Plan (DRP).
I am before you today not only in my capacity as System’s Advocate with the Center for Disability Rights, but as a person who has friends and colleagues who will be personally affected by the proposed cuts with devastating results.
As you know, the proposed cut to Medicaid is $287 million, which includes $24.5 million from home health care, and $27.5 from personal care. Combined with the loss of federal matching funds, the total amount of cuts to home care and personal care will total $131 million!
I have friends and colleagues who will be at imminent risk of institutional placement because the cuts will mean that they will not be able to receive the necessary hours of service for them to remain at home. Some of them work, and won’t be able to keep their jobs if they lose their hours of home and personal care services and are institutionalized. Not only will it cost the state more to institutionalize people, as has been demonstrated, the state will further lose revenue from the loss of tax and other revenues from these New Yorkers.
This unnecessary institutionalization is in direct contravention of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision, which states that “unnecessary institutionalization is discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act”. Instead of forcing people into institutional settings as a result of the proposed cuts, our state should be working expeditiously to create and implement an Olmstead plan to transition New Yorkers trapped in institutions back into their communities.
Another concern is that part of DRP includes $11.4 million in cuts to the state’s Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefit. A cut of as little as ten dollars will have devastating effects for people on SSI. I have a friend who has told me that a loss of even $10.00 means that he won’t be able to pay his rent. For another friend this means that she can’t pay the co-pay on her medications. Another friend won’t be able to pay bus fare to go to the doctor, school, or church, leaving him trapped in his home. For another friend, that means that she won’t be able to buy the few groceries that she can on her limited income. Add to this that for the first time in 34 years, the federal government will not add a cost of living increase, and you can only imagine what that means!
The last thing that I want to speak of is the other proposed cuts by the Senate Minority that are particularly disastrous for people with disabilities and seniors. The proposal is to eliminate all Medicaid optional services offered in New York. Optional services are those services that are not required by the federal governments, such as prescription drug coverage and home and community based personal services. People with disabilities and seniors will not be able to get their medications, or receive personal services which will result in a worsening of disabling conditions and illnesses, hospitalizations, and institutionalization in nursing facilities. I know that we can do better than this. Cuts must happen, that is true, but there must be a common-sense way that this can be done, rather than gutting the very programs that would save our state money. There must be a mustering of political will to do the right thing by the most vulnerable New Yorkers.
Thank you for your attention,
Anita Cameron
Systems Advocate
Center for Disability Rights
Live from Atlanta — the full story
Sunday, November 8th, 2009On October 9th, Rochester ADAPT hopped on a bus and headed to Atlanta, Georgia, home of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement. Georgia is also known as the Olmstead state because it was there that Lois Curtis and Elaine Wilson, the original plaintiffs in the Olmstead vs. L.C. and E.W case launched their fight to leave a psychiatric hospital and move into the community. Their case went before the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that “unnecessary institutionalization is discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act”. An outcome of the ruling is that each state must devise an Olmstead plan to transition people with disabilities living in institutions into their communities.
Ten years later, Georgia still has no Olmstead plan, and more and more Georgians with disabilities are being institutionalized. From 2002 to 2007, the percent of nursing facility residents under age 65 grew from 11.6% (7,211 people) to 14.2% (9,273 people). Of the approximately 230,000 non-institutionalized Georgians with disabilities age 5+ who require daily assistance, only about 17% of them get any assistance through the state’s Home and Community-Based Services system. And recently, the state’s Division of Aging has announced that due to budget cuts it is discontinuing its participation in the federal Money Follows the Person (MFP) program, a program created in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 that allows people to move from more expensive institutional settings back into more cost effective community settings.
Disability activists in Georgia said “enough” and asked ADAPT to help them get their Governor and Georgia state agencies to listen to them and get to work to free our people, and of course ADAPT said “yes”, so Rochester ADAPT joined 500 other ADAPT member in Atlanta.
As we were preparing to leave, YNN News came and took pictures and interviewed one of the folks going. We then took off into the rainy night, and arrived the following evening.
Sunday, October 11th dawned beautiful and sunny, and after a wonderful picnic of delicious Southern treats provided by local activists, we marched onward to a rally on hallowed ground –the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, which houses a museum, the burial site for Dr. King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, as well as the home where Dr. King was born.
Mark Johnson, a local Atlanta ADAPT member started things off with a moment of silence for all of our sisters and brother who have died in institutions, and for those still trapped inside. Ironically, right next door to this symbol of freedom is a nursing home!
Other speakers included Sue Jameson, the attorney for Lois and Elaine, Delores Bates, who finally got out of a nursing home after being in for 43 years (it was her birthday, so ADAPT sang “Happy Birthday to You”. It was the first birthday celebration she’d had in over 40 years.), Bodie Watkins, who has been trapped in a nursing home for 52 years, Andrew Jones, who was the first person in Georgia to transition back into the community under MFP, and Lois Curtis, the surviving Olmstead plaintiff, who led us in a “Free Our People” chant. After the rally, ADAPT slowly marched past the nursing home next door, while “We Shall Overcome” was sang. It is here that I will confess that it was I who sang “We Shall Overcome”. ADAPT members felt that it was powerful and moving, and many were brought to tears. I was honored to have been asked to do the singing. It was powerful and emotional for me. Click here to see the video of Sunday’s rally.
Monday, the 12th was a day of epic rain, but that didn’t stop ADAPT! We headed to the Capitol to get Governor Sonny Perdue to keep the promises he made to Georgians with disabilities during his first term. Dashing through the rain, we stormed the Capitol, taking over the first and second floors. The building was alive and pulsing with our chants of “free our people”, and “people are dying, shame on you”! Our demands were:
1. Meet with ADAPT;
2. Appoint an Olmstead “Czar” to divert from nursing homes people who wish to remain in the community, and transition others already in nursing facilities back into the community;
3. Adequately fund community-based services so Georgia complies with Olmstead and the ADA;
4. Freeze institutional funding at current levels and work with advocates to rebalance long-term services and supports funding so the majority is spent on home and community services;
5. Modernize Georgia’s Nurse Practice Act to allow trained attendants to perform health maintenance tasks;
6. Fund community organizations to identify & assist people in institutions to return to community;
7. Issue an Executive Order requiring the Division of Aging to keep implementing MFP, and remove the “cost share” from Community Care Services Program services; and
8. Demonstrate leadership by publicly urging other southern state governors to develop and implement Olmstead plans and policies in accordance with the ADA and the Olmstead decision
After much negotiations, ADAPT was able to get a meeting with the Governor’s Chief of Staff, and other high-level administrators.
Tuesday, the 13th, ADAPT headed over to the Office of Civil Rights to find out why they aren’t enforcing the Olmstead decision, and to push them to do so. The cops were clearly unhappy with our presence as wave after wave of ADAPTers entered the building, and they got ROUGH! We kept our cool, as we are a steadfastly nonviolent group, and concentrated on why we were there. A few of our folks were arrested, and several were definitely man-and woman-handled and injured. After negotiations, those folks were released, and later, Roosevelt Freeman, the Regional Director of the Office of Civil Rights, came out with some of his staff and announced that they would be meeting with ADAPT the next day.
Elated, we had lunch, then, took a quick walk over to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). No sooner than we filled the first floor lobby, the Regional Director of HUD came down, welcomed us, and asked to meet with six of us. An hour later, she and her staff told ADAPT that they would restart monthly meetings with ADAPT, have the national office work with local housing authorities to support vouchers for folks wanting to transition from nursing homes back into the community, and have the regional office provide training on fair housing compliance. What a day!
Wednesday, the 14th, we tackled the issue of the media not seeing the issue of living at home rather than an institution as a civil rights issue. The media either won’t cover most disability issues, or gets it totally wrong. Case in Point: CNN’s medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, did a report back in August where he referred to the Community Choice Act (CCA) as legislation that would improve access to hospitals. WRONG! CCA is about giving people with disabilities and seniors living in institutions the choice to live in the community! ADAPT contacted Dr. Gupta and asked him to correct his story, but he never responded. Well, guess whose world headquarters were right next door to our hotel? Why CNN, of course, and ADAPT took full advantage of that fact! We sauntered over to the CNN entrance, then, executed a lightening fast takeover of the entrance and lobby, and our chanting could be heard throughout the CNN complex. The cops, as usual were pretty rough, but negotiations quickly began taking place. A cameraman came down and began filming, and a staff person came over to see what we wanted. She quickly took our demands upstairs.
Our demands were:
That Dr. Sanjay Gupta and his colleagues at CNN meet with ADAPT to learn about the institutional bias, the Community Choice Act (S683/HR1670), and consumer-directed/community-based alternatives to institutionalization;
That Dr. Gupta correct his inaccurate report about the Community Choice Act;
That Dr. Gupta and his colleagues at CNN acknowledge in their reporting that there are disability rights and civil rights issues embedded within healthcare issues;
That Dr. Gupta and his colleagues at CNN report about the efforts of the disability community to eliminate the institutional bias and give people a REAL CHOICE in how and where they receive long term services and supports; and
That Dr. Gupta and his colleagues at CNN report about community-based and consumer-directed models of assistance that are more cost-effective and give seniors and people with disabilities real control over their lives.
Almost immediately, David Vigilante, CNN’s VP for Legal Services came down, and a team of ADAPT folks (I was one of the group) went upstairs with him to discuss our demands. It was clear that he “got it” about community choice being a civil rights issue. Vigilante told our group that they agreed to explore how they could do a story about our demands. He was given a list of ADAPT folks to contact, and CNN has actually began calling and connecting with ADAPTers.
The day wasn’t done though. We went back to the Office of Civil Rights offices with the 10 ADAPTers who were to meet with the Regional Director and his staff. Though it was drizzling, our spirits certainly were not dampened and we chanted and sang as we waited for news of the outcome of the meeting.
The news was great! OCR was very open to systemic improvements in reporting and investigating Olmstead compliance in the eight states that make up the Southeast region. They were also interested in investigating systemic complaints because it would benefit more people, as opposed to individual complaints. Finally, they said that they would share the work that they were doing with other OCR offices for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) around the country so that Olmstead compliance would happen everywhere.
What a week! We hit four targets in 3 days, and helped our sisters and brothers in Georgia make headway that they could not make in years. ADAPT ended the week with our traditional party, but for the Rochester crew, it wasn’t over yet. We stayed on in Atlanta for two “play days”.
Thursday, the 15th, some of our folks went to the Aquarium, while others rested, or tried to recover their strength. I will say here that I stayed in bed the whole day, as I was suffering, and I do mean suffering from the ADAPT Crud. Lisa went with some of our crew to the Underground Mall, where she bought me a beautiful shirt from an Afrocentric store.
Friday, the 16th, some of our crew went to the Coca-Cola Factory, but many of us (including me; I wouldn’t have missed this opportunity for the world, ADAPT Crud be damned!) returned to the Martin Luther King Center. We walked about the museum, where there were entire rooms devoted to the life of Dr. King, Coretta Scott King, Rosa Parks, and Mahatma Gandhi. The rooms held pictures, period clothing, a giant timeline, Dr., and Mrs. King’s medals that they had received (including Dr. King’s Nobel Peace Prize), and the books and papers that Dr. King had written. In another building, we watched a movie about the civil rights movement, posed on a giant recreation of a march, listened to some of Dr. King’s speeches, and saw a huge clear glass structure that was covered with every Jim Crow law from every state in the South. Our emotions were mixed – amazed, sad, angry, relieved that these laws are no more.
Later that evening, our hardy Rochester folks boarded the bus for the long ride home, invigorated by this action and ready to work to FREE OUR PEOPLE!
Live from Atlanta-OCR
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009I’m here at the Federal Building, which houses the Office of Civil Rights (OCR), a division of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
It was a bit intense at first, but we managed to get some of our folks inside. Negotiations began immediatelly. The long and short of it is that a couple of hours later, Roosevelt Freeman, Regional Director of OCR, came out with some of his staff to speak with ADAPT. He promised to meet with 10 ADAPT members tomorrow, Wednesday, to discuss the demands. Score another victory for ADAPT!
Now, as I post, we are at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Within minutes of our takeover, the Regional Director announced that she would meet with ADAPT upstairs, so six of us are meeting right now with her and eight of her staff. They have now come out to give an update. I will tell you more later, but so far, they have committed to meeting with ADAPT regularly.
More later…
